


Comb

by herbailiwick



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Hallucifer, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-05-28
Updated: 2015-05-28
Packaged: 2018-04-01 15:56:43
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,145
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4025962
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/herbailiwick/pseuds/herbailiwick
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>pirateking42 prompted: "Imagine Person A using Person B’s lap as a pillow."</p><p>Takes place after 7x02 and before 7x09.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Comb

Sam crosses into the kitchen as quiet as possible, but Bobby knows every inch of the place and he knows what it sounds like to cross the hall, even when you’re doing it quietly, so he turns the page in the book but keeps an ear out.

The clinks and soft shuffles, the running faucet, mean Sam wants some water. He wants some distraction, or maybe he woke up in a cold sweat and needs to hydrate.

Bobby waits. He doesn’t have any guarantee Sam will come and interface with him about his problems. A lot of the time, he doesn’t, and that’s fine. Dean is more of a asker, a whiner even, than Sam. Sam likes to take care of things himself so’s not to be a burden. Bobby has yet to see him hit “burden” point, even if Dean thinks he has.

Bobby gives Sam a little grace during the approach, hearing more telltale sounds. He keeps his head in the book, researching, as always, in the low light. Sam takes a moment to reach his peripheral vision, glass in hand.

Bobby still waits. Lets Sam take off after all if he wants to, minds the text he can see in the light, whereas Sam’s just a little more difficult to see.

Sam clears his throat. Bobby looks up right away, catches his gaze. He won’t say he hasn’t been worrying. Sam does look a little tired. But he looks more than a little nervous.

Bobby’s not sure if he should say the case can wait. It’s a _case_ , and you never _really_  know what kind of time frame you got with a creature that ain’t, say, a ghost that acts on anniversaries or something.

“Can’t sleep?”  


Sam sets his glass on the edge of the desk, full of water except for a few sips. He reaches out, his hand coming into the ring of light from the lamp to become more illuminated than the rest of him. The hand without that scar. 

Bobby reaches for it, takes it in his own. It’s a little clammy. He grips it, gets up from his chair, already on another mission.

“Starting to think I can’t do _anything_ ,” Sam says glumly. Bobby hasn’t let go of the hand yet. He doesn’t now.  


“Well, we’ll see about that,” Bobby grumbles back.   


They both know he’ll get Sam to calm down. They both know he’ll make it happen, some way or another.

“TV?” Sam asks, a soft smile in place, deeply genuine. 

True, TV had worked. “You shittin’ me? I’m busy,” Bobby protests, snatching the book back up from the desk with one hand. “I’m gonna read you some lore.” Sometimes, he wishes Sam wouldn’t smile that sweetly, like it’s a privilege to be in such a dusty old house, with such a negative, downright unpleasant old man. 

Snaking his hand out from Sam’s almost prematurely and flicking on another lamp, he takes a seat on the couch, settling in. Sam watches as he arranges the book on his lap, pointedly resting his arm along the back of the couch as if to say, “You want comfort? Come and get it.”

Sam shuffles over, in jeans and a v-neck, and he really had sweat a little. He smells a little like it, though not, to be honest, in a bad way. And his hair, when Sam’s down at sitting height and Bobby can lazily card through it, is slightly damp.

Bobby thumbs at his sideburn for a moment, then pulls his hand away from Sam’s hair to curl it around the shoulder farthest away instead.

“That felt nice,” Sam protests.  


“Okay, well, shut up,” Bobby says, setting that rule with a little hint of embarrassment, even in the dark. Dean is just a floor away, in the room Sam should still be in. Bobby’s hand returns to Sam’s hair, to his scalp, gently rubbing, pulling in soothing movements.  


He reads to Sam about the potential spells his friends might need, and the Latin makes Sam’s eyes droop until they finally close.

Bobby keeps reading for a little while, even after Sam’s breathing slows and his body slumps tellingly. The sound of his own voice isn’t so bad, not with Sam’s hair between his fingers, not with Sam’s warmth right there in the crook of his arm, right there against his side.

Sam jerks awake within a few minutes. He whines a little sound that reminds Bobby of Rumsfeld when he wanted to chase a squirrel. Other than that, he’s silent. He shakes. 

“Lucifer,” he explains when Bobby finally trails off into silence.

Bobby looks around the room, almost wishing he could see the archangel too. “Where?” he demands.

Sam gestures. “Window. Standing there, mocking us.”

Bobby shifts so he’s facing toward the window more easily. He shifts Sam a little too, holding him close. “Well, Lucifer, hi. Thanks for the visit, but you really gotta fuck off now. We don’t want you here.” 

Sam snorts, but it’s only part positive. There’s nerves there too, fear.

“He’s back on Earth now,” Bobby goes on. “He’s back, and he’ll never be in the Cage again, so leave him alone.”  


Sam completely stiffens in Bobby’s arm, and Bobby looks over into his face, so close they could almost kiss, and Sam’s looking at him in absolute horror.

“He set you on fire,” is all Sam says.  


Bobby’s mouth goes dry.

Bobby barely even registers tossing the book off his lap, or pulling Sam’s head down. “Just close your eyes. I’ll touch your hair. Just close your eyes,” he says.

The spell can wait. 

“I remember a lot of fire,” Sam explains, voice soft. “It was a favorite of his. Of the Cage’s? Of something’s.”  


Bobby reaches down with his free hand and mutters that Sam should take it under his breath.

“It smells so bad,” Sam murmurs.  


Like a Wendigo. Like a Changeling. Like a Rougarou.

Like a rogue angel lit up with holy fire.

“He’s not real, and he can’t touch me,” Bobby bites back, voice cool. “He can’t do a fucking thing to me. He’s in the ground. You’ve been up here for two years, hanging out with me. We played too much poker for it not to be real.”  


Sam sighs. “Yeah,” he says. 

“But?”  


“But logic doesn’t really make him go away.”  


Bobby settles for stroking Sam’s hair for hours. His hand actually gets tired of doing it, but at least Sam gets tired from it too, moving in and out of sleep.

Dean’s got no right to be so afraid of such a man, Bobby thinks as the moon moves in the sky, as the light outside finally begins to turn a telltale blue. Sam is doing the best he can. Sam always has.

Bobby feels Sam’s slowed breathing and wishes he could immolate a hallucination.


End file.
